Bertha: Strongly Symbolic, But She's Just as Human

     People have an amazing ability to label others. Someone who rings you out at a grocery store is merely a cashier to customers, a flower is just a seed that grew, and a family walking down the street is just that: a picture perfect family. However, there is always more than what meets the eye, but humans have the ability to allow all the little things we run into during the day to just be that. Little things. Let's just take a quick glimpse back over those three things that someone labelled and disregarded on first glance. The woman at the cash register is going to school, she has three jobs and manages to be an honors student at the same time. The flower was planted there as a memorial of a loved one. That picture perfect family isn't blood related, the kindness and amazing hearts of the couple led to a beautiful adopted family. Let's use this new lens to look into Bertha as a character.
     Of course Bertha is a symbol of all the things that are hidden in Jane. There's the burning bed which symbolizes her sexual desires, the craziness in which Bertha acts with symbolizes the built of frustration and turmoil that Jane has carried within herself over the years, and Bertha jumping off of the building symbolizes the death of an old part of Jane and the welcoming to a new, more independent and financially stable Jane. A Jane that is now an equal to more of the people she wishes to associate with. However, it's in reading into Bertha excessively that we as the reader lose sight that there is a story and a history in Bertha. She is, none-the-less, someone's daughter, a loved family member. She has thought's and feelings, maybe even hopes and dreams if they had not been crushed by Rochester. Wide Sargasso Sea is a great story of Bertha and how she came to be who she is. The greatest thing that hits me hard as a reader is her constant repetition of Rochester being referred to as "the man who hates me". Bertha is more than just symbolism. She's a scared woman who has been driven crazy measures to finally achieve freedom in death. Maybe Rochester does deserve forgiveness in what he has done after losing his hand and his sight, but we as reader's still should have a bit of a struggle in forgiving him. Most importantly, we should try not to lose sight of humanity just to make sense of a story.


Side note: what is this even supposed to mean? That all people are supposed to have big, gigantic, terrible secrets that they hid from you? Glad to see the trust in other's these days.